Recovery
by SirienneHolmes
Summary: Sequel to "Home"! John heals Sherlock and they love each other. There's no sex yet, though! T for cursing.


**Recovery** (A Sequel to "Home")

There's something magical about becoming conscious in a bed with cozy blankets all around you and knowing that you are awake permanently and there really is no use going back to sleep. Oh, but you can _try_, damn it, yes you can, but it just doesn't work. You're awake.

I was in this state right now, but unlike normal human beings, I don't fight to go back to sleep. This time, I fought to stay beneath the covers instead of popping up like a jack-in-the-box (using the analogy to avoid other imagery, okay?). But I opened my eyes and waited for them to become accustomed to the dark.

Now there are many reasons that I don't sleep deeply. Most of them have to do with the _constant_ monologue in my brain. I've spent so long training my mind to think that it never shuts up about interesting experiments, cold cases, serial killer profiles, books and magazines and articles I need to read, blog posts I need to just sit down and write already. But this time, it's for an entirely different reason.

Everything from the pit of my stomach, up and down in both directions, hurts. Hurts like a thousand needles are in every single inch of my nervous system. The pain radiates from the pit of my stomach and radiates out like an electromagnetic pulse. And it communicates to the rest of my body and to my brain what I already goddamn well know.

I am in the process of starving to death. Well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but that's what these pulses keep telling me. I'm quite certain that I'm not going to expire, no, certainly not. But I am going to be in quite a bit of pain.

So I try to push past this fact for now. I stretch gingerly and turn over with a gentle and light motion, suddenly very aware of where I am (my room), what has transpired (I have told John Watson that I love him), and who is with me in bed (John Watson). I'm over in the far side of the bed by the door and I make a mental note that this must never happen again. I must always have the window because when I can't sleep, I like to peer out into the early morning London streets, bathed in warm, golden streetlamp light and watch for the rare sights of the quiet hour—stray cats, rats the size of said felines, the occasional stray dog, the homeless beggar rustling under his newspaper bedding. I also sometimes watch our neighbors that live in the basement flat across from us. They have twins, and so occasionally, I see the lights go on and hear the faint cries of the infants.

The pain is starting again, and I focus on John, the man lying in bed beside me. His face is inches from mine, his breath slow and even. Occasionally, a little snore will interrupt the steady rhythm, but then he will go back to the normal pattern. His hair is tussled from sleep, and he has removed his jumper, the undershirt now clearly visible between the sheets. It reminds me that I'm still fully dressed, and that makes me uncomfortable.

I wrestle to unbutton my shirt and slip it off, discarding it on the floor. Then, I unbutton my dress pants and slide them off. It's a difficult task, and I'm glad I picked today (yesterday?) to wear boxers. I usually don't because, well, it's inconvenient for what I do, and they usually don't look good under dress pants, but I do own a few pairs.

I wonder with some humor if I'd seen this whole situation coming. I decide immediately it doesn't matter and give the ball my dress pants have been reduced to a few good kicks until I can't feel them in the bed anymore. John stirs, and I settle down again, trying for once to give myself back to sleep. I close my eyes, but just as I'm beginning to think that I _could_ _maybe just_ drift off, my stomach growls.

I instantly cradle my stomach, cringing in pain. Dear God, I'm suffering, suffering so badly, but I can work past pain, oh yes, yes I can, I wouldn't be Sherlock Holmes if I—but here comes the pain again. This time, I can't help it. Before I can stop myself, I let out a moan of pain.

Apparently, it's louder than I thought because John stirs, stretches, and wakes up. I freeze, my hands still cradling my stomach, the ridges of my ribs pressing at my arms. When he looks at me sleepily, I smile apologetically and begin to explain.

"John, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you, it's fine, I'm fine, go back to sleep now, you were drinking and you'll have a hangover and John, I'm fine, honestly, I promise, just go back to sleep." Although my explanation began a bit desperately, by the end I am the simple command, the Sherlock I am during a case, and my eyes are just as commanding. At least I hope they are. Because I'd feel pretty terrible if they showed half as much pain as I can feel. In response, I do the only thing I can: tighten my grip around my stomach. So I do.

John rubs his eyes and then sits up, peering at the clock. Then, he rejoins me amongst the covers. "It's okay, Sherlock," he says tenderly, and I have to jump because only in my dreams is John beside me in bed and talking to me so softly and so kindly as this. "I know why you're awake."

Of course he does. He _is_ a doctor after all. "I'm sorry," I explain. "Really. I honestly didn't mean to moan—I'm okay! Honest! Don't—don't get up," I urge him, pulling him back towards the covers. I'm so weak that half my strength goes into pulling him down and my iron resolve has long since rusted.

John holds my thin face between two warm hands—my hands will never be as warm—and crushes his lips against mine. I sigh into the kiss and my hands move to embrace him. Suddenly, his tongue is like the sweetest food in the world, and as his saliva trickles down my throat while we kiss, I feel sated. John Watson is all the food I will ever need.

At least until he pulls away. And then, once again, tea and toast and fruit and the occasional biscuit are not enough food, and I'm impossibly weak. My long fingers linger on his arm as he gets up and pulls on a dressing gown. "I'll go make you something. You responded well to the toast and honey, so I'll see if I can't make you something more substantial." I lie in the bed, not sure if he wants me to come with him. It's cold outside the covers, and I don't want to leave them. So, when John finally pads into the main part of the flat, I gather the covers around my shoulders and take them with me.

John laughs when he sees me and I realize I must look like quite a sight, long limbs mostly bare and impossibly white, long slender neck, curly hair all a mess, thin enough to show off bone beneath the skin. "You didn't have to come, love," he says at last affectionately, and I wonder when it was that _he_ fell in love with _me_, because I didn't make it past the first case we'd had together. How he'd killed another man to save my life, a man he barely knew. Even I was surprised that I could fall in love that fast! I, the freak, the sociopath! But, if I didn't know that I was in love then, I knew it when I was on top of St. Bart's, about to jump. Tears. Tears because I had to lie to the man I loved—and hell to pay if anyone thought it was wrong for us to be together—and then leave him to hunt down Moriarty's spiders.

I shrug. I can't possibly tell him enough that I've had quite enough of being alone in my life and I simply don't want to be any longer, and I'm not sure how to go about telling him that. So I walk into the kitchen and sit at the table. "How many days until Christmas?" I ask.

John is fixing something, but I can't tell what—eggs by the smell of it. He shrugs. "A week, give or take."

I sit back in my chair and assume my 'thinking pose,' which is to say, hands pressed together as if in prayer, thumbs pressed against my lips. These lips that are so dry, that are begging to be filled. I long to swallow, to swallow down food and as much of it as John will allow me. I _know_ that refeeding a starving person is a difficult and delicate task, but God if I don't want to just sit down to a feast and devour every kind of food I can get my hands on. I close my eyes, weak, so impossibly _weak_ that I couldn't be swayed to move one heavy muscle if my life depended on it.

John sets something down in front of me and puts the back of his hand against my forehead. I open my eyes at his touch and can tell by the way he clicks his tongue that he disapproves. "Not good?" I ask, my voice so small and whiny and weak that I can hardly believe it's mine.

"Bit not good, yeah," John replies, tilting my head back just slightly to look at my eyes in the light. "Sherlock, I don't know…how did you go about solving cases on an empty stomach?" He backs away from me now, but not without a fleeting kiss on the lips.

"I love you so much, John," I sigh, trying to ignore the delicious smell of breakfast—scrambled eggs and sausage and toast with honey and tea—and trying to tell John how much he means to me. "I've loved you right from when you saved my life—" but I'm interrupted by John's lips and then a forkful of egg replaces John's tongue and I chew and swallow because I want to and oh God yes there's a hint of cheese and salt and I'm so famished, I could eat forever.

"I know you love me," John is watching me, sitting next to me, waiting patiently to feed me again, maybe because he knows I'm too weak to feed myself and too tired to try and comprehend how to use a fork. "I love you, too. Why else do you think I followed you all over London that night? Chasing a damned _cabbie_."

I giggle because I'm food-drunk (is that possible?) and because I'm tired. "Feed me, John. I'm so hungry, I can't even compare it to anything."

"Eat a horse?" John suggests, feeding me more egg. "How is it sitting, by the way? I took a leap of faith with them."

"Eat a horse _gladly_," I emphasize, pausing to shakily bring the cup of tea to my lips. This is also sweetened with honey and has a lemon zing to it. "And yes, the eggs are fine. I don't feel sick at all."

"Good," John shoves more eggs into my mouth before I'm even ready and laughs at my surprise, "because I've wanted to make you eat since we first met, Sherlock Holmes."

I swallow down my latest helping and expectantly open my mouth for another, which comes in the form of eggs and sausage both. I lick my lips of the taste long after it's left for my gullet and around the next bite tell John: "Honestly, I sort of wanted you to make me eat since we first met!"

John laughs and then I laugh, too. Then, he feeds me some more of my breakfast until the shake in my hands dissipates and I can use a fork again. Then John makes coffee. After I'm done eating, I get up and put my dishes in the sink and flop down in my armchair, still wearing the bedclothes.

John sits across from me. "Feeling any better, Sherlock?" He asks. "Sausage sitting all right? I'm really not supposed to give you that much protein, but it should curb your suffering a little."

I nod. "Yes. I feel _so_ much better, thank you, John." I close my eyes, still so impossibly tired.

Suddenly, John is holding me bridal style and carrying me through the flat and back to bed. I lie still as John sorts out the bedclothes and tucks me in. Before he leaves me to get some rest, he kisses me on the lips deeply until we both lose breath.

"You take a long nap," he instructs. "I'm going to the shop to get some groceries, and when I get back, I'll make you a nice lunch. Okay?"

I curl under the blankets and nod. "Yes, John." I take his hand and kiss it. "Yes, John." I nibble playfully until he snakes his hand away and strokes my curls. I roll over onto my back. "Is it wrong for me to want you, in every possible way?" I ask, and I realize after I've said it that this is one of those times when my brain has shut off and my mouth has no filter.

John shakes his head. "No, I want you, too. But you'll suffer if we do anything more than kiss, love. I want you a little stronger, and I want you to fit in your clothes." He smiles and takes my hand, giving it a squeeze. "I missed you, Sherlock."

I kiss the palm of his hand before I practically pass out from fatigue. "I missed you, too, John."

And I missed him more than he will ever know, because I will never be able to explain my loneliness to him.

Some things just don't happen, all right? But leave them be. Kindly leave them be.

_Sorry for confusing you all about "Home!" I might do another installment of this miniseries if the response is good. If you want it, you've gotta ask for it! Thanks! -SH_


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